


gentle voice, deadly song

by zanykingmentality



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Angst, DON'T read if you haven't completed chapter 1, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hurt No Comfort, Spoilers, Spoilers for chapter 1, kaito's only mentioned like once lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2019-05-25
Packaged: 2020-03-17 08:53:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18961969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zanykingmentality/pseuds/zanykingmentality
Summary: You can call for help, but no one will hear. You are all alone now.[ post-chapter 1. Shuichi tries to cope. ]





	gentle voice, deadly song

**Author's Note:**

> yeah listen this was not okay i loved kaede and i cAN'T BELIEVE THIS SHIT. i hate everything about it. god. i can't play any more until i post this i don't know why but this is the only way. i cried all night. pls bear with me (oh my GOD)

An execution.

 

Kaede’s limp, hanging body flashes through Shuichi’s mind ━ a sharp, biting reminder of everything wrong with this, every problem in the situation. How is he supposed to be confident when the one giving him that confidence is gone? But still… he has to try.

 

Kaito drops Kaede’s room key in Shuichi’s hand without a word. He wants to know how Kaito got it, but now isn’t really the time for questions. Instead, Shuichi makes a point of stopping in Kaede’s room that night, before it’s time to sleep.

 

The room is dark before he flips the light on. It feels sterile. Like the kind of place Kaede could never _really_ live in, the kind she could occupy but never call home. Red and black and white strangle each chord of the room. Except…

 

Shuichi notices a small journal on top of the desk.

 

He probably shouldn’t, but he’s so desperate for any hint of Kaede that he flips open the book as soon as it’s in his hands. The first page is covered with staffs of treble clef ━ Shuichi has to chant a mnemonic device to remember any of the notes, but that’s okay, because this is writing that Kaede’s pen touched. He runs his fingers over the dry paper, like the melody will hop into his head through touch. But he’s only the Ultimate Detective ━ and still undeserving. Still unworthy.

 

With Kaede, he’d started to think ━ he’d started to think that maybe ━

 

Well, that’s pointless now. Kaede is gone, and he is her dying wish, but it’s hard to be the embodiment of everything someone wants. Shuichi lowers his head and lets his cap obscure his eyes from the lone camera in the room, where no doubt some freak-eyed stuffed bear is watching him mourn. He hides his tears and the grimace that pulls his face taut.

 

He will never hear this song. He will never hear her muse over chords and triplets and dotted quarters. He will never hear the enchanting lilt of her voice again.

 

How much it hurts, Shuichi thinks, to have loved and lost.

 

Maybe it would have been better to have never loved at all. To have stayed part-way removed from the light exuding from a brilliant musician. But Shuichi knows he never could. The only mistake he regrets is his conjecture about a mastermind. Maybe there is no mastermind.

 

And Rantaro ━ the one Shuichi had seen smiling along lightheartedly with Kaede, both amused and cheered ━ would never learn his ultimate talent, would never find out what lay behind that moving bookcase, would never know it was Kaede who foolishly sought to kill him.

 

But who is Shuichi kidding? If anyone here is a fool, it’s him. A fool for forgetting it was murder on the line, a fool for thinking they could find a way out without killing. It was Kaede who took that burden for them. It was Rantaro that died and Kaede that killed, neither meaning any harm to the rest but dead just the same. And yet ━

 

Shuichi is still alive alive _alive_.

 

He aches to join them. Lights grow dim and blurry as salty tears stream down Shuichi’s face, faster and harder than he can ever remember. He’s breathing heavy, but he can’t let it show ━ can’t let anyone know ━

 

Trusting anyone, after everything, is difficult. Kaede would want him to do it, hell, _he_ wants to do it, but Shuichi knows ━ the rational part of him knows that as long as Monokuma can think up motives, there will be murders. Until Shuichi can get into a place he shouldn’t be and take down the game from the inside, there will be murders. How is he supposed to stop something that feels so inevitable? Something so crushing, so all-encompassing, so tiringly unfortunate ━

 

Yet he knows, Shuichi _knows_ , there’s no way any of them can survive this if they continue being suspicious. As long as there is hope, there will be despair. As long as they dream of getting out, they can see those dreams fall to the ground in fragmented pieces again and again and again. But ━ _But_ ━ !

 

He flips the page.

 

There, he sees Kaede’s curlicue handwriting, bubbly and so fitting of her. The corner of the page reads, Day 1. A log of the time they’ve spent here. Shuichi hungrily devours her words, flipping through six days’ worth of thoughts.

 

_Day 1. My name is Kaede Akamatsu._

 

_Day 2. The others blame me for working them too hard…_

 

_Day 3. If there’s a mastermind, I’ll definitely catch them!_

 

_Day 4. I gave Shuichi a present from the MonoMono Machine…_

 

_Day 5. The plan is in motion…_

 

_Day 6. I didn’t mean to kill him._

 

By the end of the journal, Shuichi’s tears have run out. He takes a deep, shaky breath and closes the notebook. Instead of depositing it back on the desk, he opens his jacket and shoves it in an inside pocket, like keeping a piece of Kaede close to him. The book feels warm through the fabric of his jacket ━ warm like her, warm like how she made him feel. Shuichi closes his eyes, runs a hand over his face, and leaves the room.

 

He will end this killing game.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm still MAD


End file.
